Jansy--
If your feeling like a clown atop a crate, you should at least know that you have an attentive, if quiet, audience that appreciates the performance--and doesn't see it as clownish in the least.
I'm glad you referenced the particular paragraph in this article. I didn't pay enough attention to it. I'm rather surprised now to see that Brown seems to be claiming that Translated Lolita resembles the Russian story (which I have never read) moreso than the English one we all know and love. Am I understanding this correctly? What is the evidence for this? (I don't read Russian.)
Fran
[EDNOTE. Just for clarification -- Brown was referring to the "Volshebnik," which Dmitri Nabokov later translated into English and published as "The Enchanter."]
Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 17:51:15 -0300
From: jansy@AETERN.US
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] The New Republic 1958 - Lolita review ...
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
It was fun to read it all over again, ready for the eyes, after Nabokov's birthday homage offered the List the entire collection from TNR. I hope the present posting represents an invitation for further discussion (I confess I've been feeling a bit lonely in the List - like a clown delivering idle chatter atop a crate - I hope others will join in this time!).
I selected one of the opening paragraphs: "whenever we are faced with a thing that cannot be measured by the tools we have, we must invent others. Beckett's and Nabokov's rewriting of their own works in their other languages is a very special form of literary work, closely resembling but not identical with translation. The difference between these feats and ordinary translation...can only be surmised, but one suspects that it is like the little abyss between zero and one...Nabokov's own Russian Lolita (first drafted as a brief Russian sketch in wartime Paris) is in truth the same book, which we see now in one of its manifold dormant aspects, hitherto withheld by the author."
The words that caught my attention this time were "the same book...in one of its manifold dormant aspects."
Nabokov's writings still hide a wealth of different "dormant aspects," which his commentators - now that he is no longer around to author their unfolding - are often daring enough to explore with greater or lesser success.
I cannot judge the quality of A. Sklyarenko's advertised achievement in relation to ADA, since it is kept in Russian and his plea might only reach a limited audience, but I hope someone can advise him about how to proceed.
There are digital-books obtainable after paying a fee: wouldn't this work for AS?